The Megyn Kelly Show - Collusion Between Political and Media Elite, and Learning Through Joy, with Marianne Williamson ｜ Ep. 288

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.640 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Joining us today, Marianne

00:00:16.660 Williamson, spiritual leader, author, and political activist. She has been highly requested by you,

00:00:24.620 our audience. We get so many requests to hear from her. We were getting interested ourselves

00:00:29.520 more and more, and then did our own research. And I said, I've got to know her. And we have so much

00:00:34.700 to get into today. We will get over and into her thoughts on the current news, like the fallout

00:00:40.880 over the Will Smith Oscar slap. They're talking about taking his Oscar away from him now. I mean,

00:00:45.240 that's absurd, right? Like, come on. But okay. They're thinking about it, as well as President

00:00:51.600 Biden's handling of Russia and Ukraine. Now he's changing his message again on his statement about

00:00:55.840 regime change that he made the other day. And then we'll talk about Marianne's run for president,

00:01:02.360 right? And what she learned about our media and our country when she tried her hand as a Democrat 0.98

00:01:09.360 politician. Marianne first became a household name long before she ran for office. She was invited on 1.00

00:01:15.160 The Oprah Winfrey Show back in 1992 to discuss her smash book. It would certainly become a smash after

00:01:21.980 the Oprah appearance in particular called A Return to Love. Oprah said that she experienced 157

00:01:29.240 miracles herself after reading it. And we'll get into what that means. Marianne went on to author

00:01:34.380 more than a dozen self-help books, including seven New York Times bestsellers, multiple number one

00:01:40.340 bestsellers. And in the course of her career, Marianne has garnered the support of millions as a

00:01:47.060 spiritual leader, not just Oprah, Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian. I think it was Steven Tyler who

00:01:54.120 credited her with helping him get over his alcohol problems. I could go on. Many of these

00:02:00.660 same stars would come back and help support her during her political campaigns. The one that you

00:02:05.600 may be familiar with was in 2019. She ran for the Democratic nomination. She captured the attention

00:02:10.380 of millions and millions of Americans. I mean, I remember looking at her saying,

00:02:14.040 who is this? And I was an Oprah fan, but somehow Marianne had escaped my notice, sadly.

00:02:19.200 But I was like, one of these things is not like the others, right? It's like she sounded different.

00:02:24.700 She looked different. She had a totally different message. And that's why she was the most Googled

00:02:29.560 candidate in 49 out of 50 states after the first debate. Here's a quick look back at why she received

00:02:38.020 so much attention.

00:02:39.100 If you think we're going to beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you've got another

00:02:42.980 thing coming. Because he didn't win by saying he had a plan. He won by simply saying, make America

00:02:48.180 great again. John Kennedy said, by the end of this decade, we are going to put a man on the moon.

00:02:54.640 Because John Kennedy was back in the day when politics included the people. Ladies and gentlemen,

00:02:59.860 we don't have a health care system in the United States. We have a sickness care system in the

00:03:05.140 United States. My first call is to Prime Minister of New Zealand, who said that her goal is to make

00:03:11.300 New Zealand the place where it's the best place in the world for a child to grow up. And I will tell

00:03:15.880 her girlfriend, you are so on, because the United States of America is going to be the best place in

00:03:20.660 the world for a child to grow up. I assure you, I lived in Grosse Pointe. What happened in Flint would

00:03:25.400 not have happened in Grosse Pointe. We need to say it like it is. It's bigger than Flint. It's all over this

00:03:30.580 country. It's particularly people of color. It's particularly people who do not have the money to 1.00

00:03:34.540 fight back. And if the Democrats don't start saying it, then why would those people feel that

00:03:38.660 they're there for us? And if those people don't feel that they won't vote for us, and Donald Trump

00:03:42.940 will win. Hmm. Wow. She dropped out of the race at the start of 2020, but she never strayed far from

00:03:49.520 the political realm. And now many are asking, what's next for Marianne Williamson? She joins us now to

00:03:55.580 discuss it all. Welcome, Marianne. So nice to meet you. Oh, it's so nice to meet you, too.

00:04:00.340 Thank you so much for having me. I love listening to that. Your Southern roots come out when you're

00:04:05.860 in the debate, right? You're from Texas originally. Yeah, I'm from Houston. And when I get nervous or

00:04:11.640 tired, it all comes out. Well, I love it. At least it's genuine. My old pal, my best friend from high

00:04:19.220 school, Kelly, she used to, after she had a few drinks, this is, you know, I knew her beyond high

00:04:23.900 school, college, law school, and so on. She used to develop a Southern accent, which was very random.

00:04:29.680 There are times when it's useful. Yes, I can see that. We're from upstate New York, however,

00:04:34.340 so it was not entirely genuine, but I loved it and love her. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about

00:04:41.740 you personally before we get into your rise as a spiritual guru. Now I've read a bunch of your

00:04:46.900 stuff and I get it and I love it. And I have a lot of things I want to ask you about in my own life.

00:04:52.180 But before we get there, tell us about your upbringing. It sounds like you moved a lot

00:04:56.660 once you became a young adult, but how about, you know, zero to 20? What was that like, broad brush?

00:05:03.520 Middle-class Jewish family in Houston, Texas. Really wonderful parents. Pretty big extended family.

00:05:12.080 Good public schools. My parents traveled a lot and they took us with them during the summers. And I

00:05:21.960 mean serious travel. My parents went everywhere and really exposed us as well. I visited behind the

00:05:31.760 Iron Curtain back when I was a teenager. I visited Vietnam when I was a teenager. So everything from 0.99

00:05:38.960 Southeast Asia to Europe, never did South America, but traveled enough as a child that I know it

00:05:48.140 affected me in some really meaningful ways. You know, people would say, my father used to always

00:05:53.720 tell the story that people would ask him, why are you taking your kids to do so much international

00:06:00.180 travel at such a young age, they won't even remember it. And his answer was that it would get under our

00:06:05.300 skin. And he was absolutely correct. There was a certain level of propaganda that I was never

00:06:12.360 vulnerable to because I had seen as a child, you know, I know your mother, I've heard you talk about

00:06:16.960 your children. You know, the importance of early childhood, you know, the importance of all childhood

00:06:21.780 and youth. That's when synapses form, something becomes viscerally known, and then you can never really

00:06:29.600 deviate from that in the same way. And so that orientation has really profoundly affected how I've

00:06:39.280 looked at the world and still do. I love that because I've heard like Goldie Hawn, she's a friend

00:06:44.780 and she's been on the show and she talked about how she's got this sense of wanderlust and always has.

00:06:50.620 And this is something different than that. I think you may still have that based on the way you chose to

00:06:55.900 live your life when you became a young adult. But this is something different. This is the imprint of the

00:07:00.620 world sort of on you as a young child and leading you to question things. Like you say, propaganda that

00:07:07.320 are fed to us by our media domestically, by our political leaders domestically, just by the world

00:07:13.820 about what's important, who we are, and so on. And I, as I see your story, once you got to be in your

00:07:20.380 20s, you started to deal with that clash of sort of this imprint the world had made on you of like

00:07:28.340 what's out there, what people are like, what's important versus what you'd been told was important,

00:07:34.920 what school had taught you, what, I don't know. I mean, you explained it to me, but you definitely

00:07:38.840 seem to be sort of bouncing around from thing to thing, looking for meaning without a ton of success

00:07:43.940 at that point. Well, I don't know. I think that my, first of all, I think for everybody,

00:07:48.480 the 20s are hard. I have a lot of compassion for people in that decade. And that's what mine were.

00:07:55.700 Mine were pretty garden variety, trying to find out who you are, experimenting with everything

00:08:01.960 possible. Certainly in my generation, we were. It wasn't so much a clash. When I traveled all over

00:08:08.660 the world, I still had a solid grounding because I was raised in a rather traditional home.

00:08:14.020 I was certainly taught to love my country, to be grateful for my country. All four of my

00:08:19.760 grandparents were born in Russia, Poland, Minsk, Pinsk, Belarus. They came here as Jewish immigrants

00:08:25.440 seeking a better life for themselves, and they found it. So I was raised with great gratitude and

00:08:32.800 love and honor and respect for this country. It's just that I was raised through travel to understand

00:08:38.800 that we're just one of many countries. And that the fact that we are big and we are powerful and

00:08:43.720 we are leaders is not about you're better and you should get whatever you want, but rather, if

00:08:49.440 anything else, you have that much more to be responsible for, both at home and your presence

00:08:56.440 in the world. That was very different than my own personal journey in my 20s. My personal journey

00:09:02.820 in my 20s was definitely, like I said, the difficulties, the pain, who am I, individuating,

00:09:11.520 becoming who we are. I had a difficult time, but I didn't have a difficult time any different than

00:09:16.640 anybody else I knew or that I know for that matter. What my questioning became in the 20s was not about

00:09:24.600 issues like America. It was issues of spirituality. I was very always, starting from even when I was a

00:09:31.300 teenager, I was interested in any kind of philosophical, religious, spiritual issues.

00:09:37.200 It could be exoteric. It could be esoteric. It could be Hegel. It could be the I Ching. 0.94

00:09:42.500 Just anything of the higher mind. I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know where to go with

00:09:48.280 that. And that became a real struggle with my parents because at that time, what were my options?

00:09:54.480 Well, my mother kept saying, we'll send you to rabbinical school. But I didn't see myself as clergy.

00:09:59.840 I didn't want to work within an institutional religion. Well, what's your other lane that you

00:10:04.060 could go into? You could be a teacher, a professor of comparative religion. I didn't see that either.

00:10:11.120 The kind of career that I have had didn't exist then. So I just kept reading, reading, studying

00:10:19.900 things that I now know were my preparation for my career. But because at that time, this career

00:10:26.360 niche didn't exist. I didn't know what I was preparing for. I just knew that it was

00:10:32.920 what I loved, much to my parents' chagrin, as you can imagine.

00:10:37.640 Well, you were, I mean, my sister-in-law, Diane, calls herself a searcher. And to me,

00:10:43.220 you seem like a searcher too. Somebody who's just questioning, questioning, questioning,

00:10:47.940 looking for a teacher, something that resonates with you as having some answers that are meaningful.

00:10:53.300 I can relate to that to some extent myself. And then it seems to me you found it, right,

00:10:59.540 in A Course in Miracles.

00:11:01.800 Well, first of all, I want to say that I think we're all seeking. Some of us just

00:11:05.280 don't know it. I think that we all live with a level of deep existential angst, questioning.

00:11:15.760 You know, we all have those times in the middle of the night where we wonder what it's all for.

00:11:20.580 I don't think that just some of us. I think that's all of us. It's just some of us make a place for

00:11:25.620 it in our conscious lives and others sort of shoo it away. I did know, as a Jew and as a student of

00:11:33.240 comparative religions in school, et cetera, I did know that there were spiritual truths

00:11:39.100 to be found in all of them. But I couldn't figure out how to apply them to my life.

00:11:45.600 When I read A Course in Miracles, it's not like, oh, nothing had been true until A Course in Miracles.

00:11:51.640 A Course in Miracles isn't a religion and there's no doctrine and there's no dogma.

00:11:56.420 It's a psychological training in forgiveness. It's based on universal spiritual themes.

00:12:04.440 So what I found in the Course was not so much truth I had never read, but a way to apply it to my own

00:12:11.840 life, to my own personal disasters, to my own inability to figure out what to do with my life

00:12:19.460 and how to fit in. That's the difference that A Course in Miracles made for me and still does.

00:12:25.600 I always say my life works really well when I practice what I preach. I mean,

00:12:29.000 spiritual exercise is like physical exercise. You never get to stop. You never get to look in

00:12:36.640 the mirror and say, okay, I look good now. I don't have to exercise anymore. Because just as

00:12:41.200 there is physical gravity that'll pull you down, there's emotional gravity, there's psychological

00:12:46.200 gravity, there's even spiritual gravity, negativity and victimization and anger and so forth.

00:12:52.520 So it's about application. That's what I found in A Course in Miracles. I found practical ways

00:12:58.640 to embody and to live and to apply these principles that I knew I was excited by, but

00:13:05.080 I didn't know how to bring into my own life.

00:13:08.620 So what, I know that you had a marriage, you said it lasted about 15 minutes.

00:13:13.020 Yeah, best weekend I ever had.

00:13:15.360 I've been there, managed to find love, true love, second time around, though still friends

00:13:20.400 with my first husband. So that happened and you've written about, you've written a whole book

00:13:26.020 on weight loss and you struggled with weight issues. And just what you describe as, I don't

00:13:34.460 want to say it wrong, but it was something to the extent of self-loathing, self-loathing for a number

00:13:39.600 of years. And I think a lot of people struggle with that.

00:13:42.620 Yes, once again, I don't, I'm sorry.

00:13:44.420 You know, I was just going to say, was that all before you came to A Course in Miracles?

00:13:49.920 Like this, this life, to me, it seems like this life-changing book and program for you.

00:13:54.400 Or is that all ongoing too, right? Is that, is all that stuff just still there and you just

00:13:59.000 know how to deal with it now?

00:14:01.540 Well, first of all, I want to say that if there's anything unique about my journey,

00:14:06.120 it's that it's not unique at all.

00:14:07.900 Very garden variety, existential angst. When you say self-loathing, anybody who has not faced

00:14:17.940 their own self-loathing has not really looked in the mirror and dealt with the level of

00:14:24.180 self-awareness that perhaps would serve us. So I don't think that I, in my books, am describing

00:14:34.580 a journey that is unique to me. In fact, I don't think my books would be as popular as they've been

00:14:39.580 if I was only describing a journey that was unique to me. I think spirituality is about the journey

00:14:45.800 that is universal. So do I still go through it? Absolutely. I'm certainly not an enlightened master,

00:14:54.880 but I will tell you that as I practice the principles to which I'm committed, both personally

00:15:01.300 I am professionally, my life works when I do it and it doesn't work when I don't do it.

00:15:06.600 I can honestly say that the good times are the rule and the bad times are the exception,

00:15:12.500 which is itself.

00:15:13.620 That's a win.

00:15:14.640 Which is, thank you. Thank you. And also a lot of it just has to do with growing up.

00:15:21.640 A lot of it has to do with just maturity. You know, I think in life, there's a line in

00:15:26.220 A Course in Miracles, it is not up to you what you learn. It is merely up to you whether you learn

00:15:31.400 through joy or through pain. Life teaches us. I think what spiritual principle enables you to do

00:15:39.460 is to learn through joy, learn through wisdom, rather than creating all this chaos in your life

00:15:45.720 that you ultimately realize was unnecessary and that caused you and possibly other people a lot of

00:15:52.320 suffering. Now we should tell the audience what A Course in Miracles is, right? It's a book by,

00:15:57.460 is it Helen Shuckman? Yes. Okay. And it is, once again, as I said before, it's not a religion,

00:16:04.540 no doctrine, no dogma. It's a psychological mind training in the relinquishment of a thought system

00:16:10.940 based on fear, which dominates this world, and the acceptance instead of a thought system that

00:16:17.080 is based on love. That's really all it is. It's about, you know, in a way, Megan, it's common sense.

00:16:25.560 It's that we should be about being better people more than just trying to accumulate things. It's

00:16:31.380 about how we should bless people more and blame people less, that we should try to be forgiving,

00:16:37.180 we should try to be charitable, we should try to be generous. We should think about our own personal

00:16:42.020 selves less and think about where we fit into the larger scheme of things more, that we should not

00:16:48.040 just be going out there trying to make something happen. We should be going out there seeking to

00:16:53.000 the best of our ability to serve the dictates of love, however they are revealed to us, that power is

00:16:59.220 in the present, not in the past or in the future. These are principles that we all know. Some people

00:17:05.060 look at them religiously, some people spiritually, some people through a secular lens. But one thing is

00:17:10.760 obvious. And that is, who among us doesn't know that peripheralizing these issues has taken us

00:17:19.900 personally and collectively to a terrible place? And just to expand on that, because when I first

00:17:28.000 read love and fear, I understood those terms as, you know, most people do. Love is a feeling you feel

00:17:33.680 for your fellow human being. It can be romantic love, it could be love for a child and so on. But love is,

00:17:38.360 as it's used here and in your books, is a much bigger word. And so is fear. Love encompasses joy

00:17:45.860 and kindness and all sorts of different, like, positive things. And fear isn't just fear.

00:17:52.960 Well, let's go back to what you said about love. I don't think it's bigger than what you said.

00:17:57.920 I think what you said is bigger than most people think. You know, there's a line in Les Miserables,

00:18:02.700 which says, to love another person is to see the face of God. I don't think the love of God is

00:18:09.400 separate from the love of one another. And so when you were talking about the love for our friends,

00:18:16.040 the love for our family, and also that has to include love for people we don't like,

00:18:21.720 love for the earth, love for the peoples of the world, that is the love of God. The love of God is

00:18:28.600 not separate from those things. But we have a political system, a social system, an economic

00:18:34.160 system that almost mitigates against the deep awareness of those things in our lives. And that

00:18:40.980 is what has taken us to where we are. Now, when you talk about fear, yes. So what the Course in Miracles

00:18:48.540 says is that there are only two emotions, love and fear. And it says that all negative emotion derives

00:18:55.620 from fear. And that fear is the absence of love, just like darkness is the absence of light. Darkness

00:19:02.580 isn't actually a thing. It's the absence of a thing. And if you are dealing with darkness, you can't hit

00:19:09.080 it with a baseball bat, analyze it away, hit it away. You have to turn on the light. So what the Course in

00:19:14.920 Miracles teaches us is that all negative emotion, all internal chaos and suffering is derived from

00:19:23.800 where the mind goes in the absence of love. And that the answer with a capital A is not just further

00:19:32.000 analysis of the fear. The answer with a capital A is to find the love that is possible in that moment,

00:19:39.560 which is always forgiveness, getting over yourself, dwelling in the present. You know, you develop the sort of

00:19:44.960 attitudinal muscles, just like you go to the gym and you work on your physical muscles. You do spiritual

00:19:52.040 practice, whatever it is, whatever it is, it's prayer, it's mindfulness, it's reflection, whatever

00:19:56.840 people are finding today to take you into that internal place where you dwell as the best of who

00:20:03.320 you are, rather than the reactive, crazy self. You know, you were mentioning before I came on

00:20:09.080 about Will Smith. Well, he had a moment where love got lost, something else came in. And I was glad to see

00:20:19.360 him yesterday, acknowledge that, return to his true self. They really atoned, apologize. I felt it

00:20:26.140 was very sincere, but I also felt it was very important. And that's the journey. Listen, his

00:20:30.980 journey. I have to say, when you see big celebrities apologize like that a day later, I mean, let's be

00:20:36.460 honest, the PR people get ahold of them and they say, this is what you're going to say. I mean,

00:20:40.460 let's, let's, that's the truth. Even that night when he went out there and apologized moments later,

00:20:44.200 he didn't apologize to Chris Rock. Well, he did yesterday. I know, but that was after the PR

00:20:50.900 people got ahold of him. Well, yeah, but hold on. Wait a minute. Absolutely. And I bet his lawyers

00:20:56.420 did. And I bet his agents did. And I bet some people who tell him the truth, who love him did.

00:21:02.700 Whatever gets us there. And, um, because life told him, see, I'm going to stay in that place.

00:21:09.600 Pardon? I'm more cynical. While you were reading Course in Miracles, I was in law school. So I'm just

00:21:13.300 more cynical than you are. It's not that I don't believe him. It's just that I've seen a lot to

00:21:17.840 know. You can't always give people the benefit of the doubt. Like I'm sure some PR person wrote that

00:21:22.120 entire statement for him and he signed off on it because he doesn't want to lose his Oscar. And

00:21:25.040 he realizes he upset a lot of people and it's in his best interest now to say he's sorry to Chris

00:21:28.640 Rock. But is he really sorry to Chris Rock? I don't really care. And I don't really believe that he is.

00:21:35.360 Well, I'll tell you this much. It's still good. It's still good that he did it. And it's still good

00:21:42.300 for the kids to see that. That's true. That's true. My husband and I told our children about this

00:21:50.240 story yesterday morning because we figured, you know, it was everywhere. And, um, that was the

00:21:54.720 first thing my husband was telling our children this morning is that he apologized. You know,

00:21:58.420 he apologized in writing repeatedly. He took responsibility and you're right. There's a good

00:22:02.940 lesson in it. Um, whether he learned it himself, time will tell. And no response from Chris Rock.

00:22:08.200 Go ahead. Well, I think it was very important because the lesson could have been, and certainly

00:22:14.100 was that night that you could physically assault someone. And if you were rich enough, powerful

00:22:19.820 enough, and had a good enough excuse that you wouldn't be held accountable. That was a very

00:22:24.940 dangerous trajectory for this culture. And I'm glad that, uh, that trajectory was interrupted.

00:22:31.580 Well, I mean, there's no question that what he did on stage was a criminal act. Um, and Chris

00:22:36.480 Rock doesn't want to press charges. That wouldn't save your average person, uh, in all cases, but

00:22:41.420 doesn't look like that's going to happen. And now the Academy is talking about taking away the Oscar,

00:22:45.560 which I think is ridiculous. I think that's ridiculous. I don't think it's going to happen 0.86

00:22:48.980 either. Whoopi Goldberg is apparently on the board that looks into these things. And she came out and 0.76

00:22:54.420 said, that's not happening. So that must just be an attempt to appease critics just to put that

00:22:59.600 even potentially on the, on the line. Um, but yeah, so now it looks like whatever he gets,

00:23:04.880 they'll say, okay, that's fine. And it'll be some sort of mild censure and we'll all move on with

00:23:08.600 our lives. But, you know, thinking about it, I have to say, I do feel like we lost a little bit

00:23:12.460 that night. We lost a little bit of our, I don't know, civility toward one another, the norms that

00:23:18.400 we normally, you know, observe. And I realized there's been a lot of that over the past 10 years, but

00:23:22.600 I don't know that to me, that would have been an unthinkable act 10 years ago, even just 10 years ago

00:23:27.880 on a live broadcast, like the Academy Awards. And the fact that it was celebrated by some,

00:23:32.880 some people just thought it was great. He was protecting his woman said to me, you know,

00:23:36.760 we're losing, we're, we're etching away a little bit more each day at these norms that we once

00:23:42.540 agreed to live by. Well, that's why it's important that either he apologized and atoned or that he be

00:23:50.280 held accountable. You know, it's like with the pussy tape. Oh, that's just locker room talk. No, 0.99

00:23:54.780 it's not. And the same thing with here. Oh, it's just because he was a man protecting the honor of

00:23:59.500 his, of his wife. No, that's not okay. Certain things are not okay. And we have suffered greatly

00:24:05.060 as a society by being too flexible around what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And I think

00:24:12.480 holding people accountable is extremely important, but I also believe that God is merciful and apologies

00:24:17.240 and atonement and amends do matter as well. Yeah. Well, I, I agree with that. And you know,

00:24:22.500 that that's a problem because when you take it into the political arena or even Will Smith is not

00:24:27.580 a political guy, as far as I know, I don't, I haven't heard him go left or right, but when you

00:24:32.920 take it into the political arena, people just dig in on their side versus the other side. And you

00:24:39.460 mentioned, you know, the Trump tape, you know, his supporters just saw it, like went to the mat to

00:24:45.160 defend him on it. It's like, why can't there be a moment where you say that's not okay. What he said

00:24:51.260 on the tape is not okay. And you can still vote for him. You can still support him. You don't

00:24:56.000 have to make an excuse for that moment, you know, but that's where we are now. Your guy is the

00:25:01.680 greatest. The other guy is the worst. Well, not only your guy is the greatest, the other guy is the

00:25:07.420 worst, but your guy is the greatest based on his politics. Your guy is the worst based on his,

00:25:12.180 you know, if you look back at the, at, uh, president Nixon and Watergate, it was Republicans who drove to

00:25:18.680 the white house and said that it's over, you know, in his farewell address, uh, George Washington

00:25:25.540 warned us about political parties. And he said that they will form factions of men. He said who

00:25:31.120 are more concerned with their party than with their country. And that's what's happened to our

00:25:35.540 country. People more concerned with just taking up for the people who agree with us and, uh, damning

00:25:41.380 the people who don't agree with us and certain principles should matter, whether it's with someone

00:25:46.980 that we agree with or someone that we don't agree with. And, um, I, I, I think I feel confident

00:25:54.140 that enough Americans are realizing that, that this idea that we're all going to just exist in silos

00:26:00.000 and only hang with and only defend people that we like or people who agree with us has taken us to a

00:26:06.960 terrible place. And, um, and when I say a terrible place, I mean, a trajectory of, of damage that is

00:26:14.260 careening out of control as we speak. So I think the fact that so many of us are talking about what

00:26:19.840 you're saying, um, recognizing the damage that it does to close your heart to anyone who doesn't

00:26:26.100 agree with you or to cover up for the mistakes of people who make mistakes that should be considered

00:26:31.300 intolerable. Even if we do agree with them, we have everything a bit upside down right now. And

00:26:35.860 hopefully we're getting back towards that golden mean of human thought and behavior.

00:26:39.540 The one, the one uplifting spot, you know, the one sign of hope on this front is the number of

00:26:44.980 independents I think is at an all time high, like the, the number of people who are leaving the

00:26:49.260 parties and saying, I don't, I just don't identify with these people and I don't identify with it with

00:26:53.880 these sweeping platforms. I'm just going to make up my own mind. I love to see the number of

00:26:58.340 independents grow. I've been one myself for, I don't know, going on 20 years now, highly recommend

00:27:03.020 it. And it just feels liberating not to have to put on somebody's team Jersey. Um, I know you

00:27:07.520 actually, I'm speaking to somebody who ran for the democratic nomination, though, as you well know,

00:27:11.400 you can't win if you run as an independent. Well, that's yes. And I ran for Congress as an

00:27:16.400 independent. Yeah. I think that, uh, like you said, the growing crowd, uh, the growing population,

00:27:22.600 the growing demographic is independent. The problem we have, however, is that the Democrats and the

00:27:27.340 Republicans have sort of sewn up the system, um, institutionally in ways that make it very

00:27:33.620 difficult for people who do not run as a Democrat or Republican, uh, to have, um, the voice in the

00:27:41.040 political landscape that we should have. And this is, this is very damaging right now. If you look at

00:27:45.520 the history of the United States, third party party voices were very important. Uh, abolition came from

00:27:51.160 the abolitionist party. Uh, women's suffrage came from the women's party. Social security came from the 0.82

00:27:56.980 socialist party. Uh, the greatest movements forward in this country, but we're not generated from the

00:28:03.020 major parties. And now, uh, with this lock, uh, that the Democrats and the Republicans, um, I'm,

00:28:09.580 I'm not saying that it's a lock that we can't, you know, I'm not saying it's a door we can't break

00:28:13.620 into. I think we must break into it, but, um, it's, it's definitely a problem and has left so many

00:28:20.520 Americans feeling politically homeless, um, for the last 40 years. No, it's like, you look, you look

00:28:27.440 behind those doors. It's like behind the one door I see, you know, like AOC behind the other door. I

00:28:32.280 see Matt Gates and I say, I'm just going to reverse back here. I will not be sharing jerseys with either

00:28:39.020 of those people. Well, there's a, if you look at it, uh, from one angle, they're so very, very different,

00:28:47.320 but the most dangerous thing is not the ways that the parties are so different. Uh, the most

00:28:52.720 dangerous ways of the part is the way are the things in which, um, the parties are way too much

00:28:57.620 the same for the last 40 years. Uh, they have both fostered both Democrats and Republicans,

00:29:03.200 an era of neoliberal economics and, and politics that has taken us to where we are. And I think that

00:29:10.140 Americans are, um, now realizing we must look, uh, clear eyed at where we are, whether it has to do

00:29:19.020 with the state of our environment, the state of our economy, the state of our democracy, we are on a

00:29:23.880 suicidal March. And this is where the system brought us. Now I, I'm someone who thinks it started with

00:29:30.120 Republicans, but the Democrats haven't stopped it. Uh, it, it, it, it, it, this orgy of deregulation,

00:29:36.580 this orgy of corporate dominance, uh, this economic ordering of our, of our, uh, society.

00:29:42.340 And then you look at the ways in which they're in lockstep. Uh, they're in lockstep when it comes

00:29:47.160 to funding the military. They're in lockstep when it comes to, um, too many things, uh, that actually

00:29:53.480 affect the daily lives of the Americans. So I understand why people are upset. And I, myself,

00:29:58.480 having run for president, certainly saw how the system operates in such a way as to only allow

00:30:04.900 people to the best of its ability to only allow people into the game who align with their predetermined

00:30:11.900 agenda. Um, and you have to be in their minds, one of the people that they consider, uh, uh,

00:30:19.060 ready to perpetuate the system as, as they gain from it. It's not just as they see it, but as they

00:30:24.860 gain. It's very much true. It's not just the parties who control that door or try to stand behind

00:30:29.680 it. It's the media as well. And I know, I call it the political media industrial complex. I saw how

00:30:36.920 it works. Um, you were talking about the, I was Googled, you know, the most Google person within

00:30:42.120 49 States and within three days, you couldn't look at any media, uh, outlet that I wasn't described as

00:30:49.900 dangerous and crazy and crystal lady and anti-vax and anti-science and all. It's like, really like

00:30:55.960 what? Um, so I saw how it works. I saw how they collude, but I'll tell you something else that I

00:31:01.740 saw. I saw how corrupt all that is, but I also, I realized that the system was even more corrupt

00:31:08.140 than I feared. And people are even more wonderful than I hoped when you're actually out there talking

00:31:14.800 to voters. It's exhilarating. It's inspiring, particularly in those primary States where people

00:31:21.260 realize that their vote could affect the world. People take it so seriously. That's why I left

00:31:29.420 that experience. I came out of that experience more cynical about the system, but more committed,

00:31:36.800 uh, in my faith, uh, that representative democracy is in fact a genius idea and we need to get back to

00:31:45.200 it. Oh, much more to go over. Gosh, this is great. We haven't even scratched the surface with Marianne

00:31:50.300 Williamson. Uh, we'll squeeze in a quick commercial break and much, much more right after this quick

00:31:55.060 break. Marianne, um, in reading up on you and the press coverage, reminding myself of how they

00:32:07.500 covered you when you were running for office for, for the president for the nomination. Um, it reminded

00:32:13.000 me of something that I saw about myself in the press in the New York times. It was when I left Fox and

00:32:17.680 I went to NBC and I gave an interview to the media reporter there and he was asking me why I made the

00:32:23.840 decision. You know, I went from this powerful post and cable news to a morning show, which is softer.

00:32:29.380 And I kept talking to him about how I had been very unhappy in my old post. And I was really on a

00:32:34.820 search for more joy in my life that I, you know, people only knew this sort of tough news anchor

00:32:41.720 version of me. But what they didn't know was behind the scenes, I was miserable. I wasn't seeing my

00:32:46.820 kids grow up, wasn't seeing my friends. I had no life. All I did was combat for a living right on

00:32:52.640 the world stage. And I did it well, but it wasn't doing anything for me as a human. Um, and I read

00:32:59.560 the article and I can't stand these guys at the times. Honestly, there's some guys I like over there,

00:33:04.400 but the times it's just so biased. So what's my message? I'm leaving Fox news. I mean, you think if

00:33:08.640 there's anything the New York times is going to celebrate about somebody like me is that I'm

00:33:11.520 leaving Fox news? Nope. The whole thing was mocking me for pursuing quote joy. And it talked

00:33:19.540 about the number of times I use that word. Right. And I was like, fuck these guys. Sorry. I'm in

00:33:24.600 Lent and I'm trying not to swear, but I'm really doing poorly at it. Um, that's how I felt when I

00:33:30.360 read it. Right. And when I read the press coverage of you, went back, read the times, read the post and

00:33:36.240 all of them, New York, uh, Washington post. It was that times a hundred. I mean, it was

00:33:41.660 that magnified out beyond brutal, vicious mocking you for your decades as somebody who's been very

00:33:50.540 helpful to people spiritually in a quest to make people's lives better. And you come into the,

00:33:56.100 into presidential politics with a different kind of message focused on love, right? Trying to change

00:34:01.000 the way we deal with one another as parties, as a country, as citizens through this lens of love

00:34:06.140 as we discussed. And all they could do was make fun of it. It must've been infuriating or I don't

00:34:12.860 know. You tell me, how did it make you feel? Well, it was brutal. It was brutalizing in all the ways

00:34:18.700 that you just described, um, your own experience reading that article. And mine was that several

00:34:25.420 times a day, all day, every day, but let's talk about why they did it. They didn't really do it.

00:34:32.020 This whole canard of me being such a silly person. They did it because they knew that I wasn't 0.82

00:34:37.460 joking. They called me a joke because they knew that I wasn't joking. Let's look at what's happening

00:34:42.360 here. This is a political establishment that, as we said before, has taken us to maybe six inches

00:34:48.140 away from the cliff, both in terms of the vitality of our democracy, even the survival of our democracy,

00:34:53.460 the survival of our ecosystem, uh, the, the unbelievable rigging of our economy. And they

00:35:01.440 have the audacity to say that the only people we should consider qualified to even be in the

00:35:07.120 conversation are those whose careers have been embedded for decades in the car that drove us into

00:35:13.280 this ditch. They're the only ones we should consider qualified to take us out of the ditch. So yeah,

00:35:20.200 they, they, uh, there is an elite establishment in the media and in politics. And, um, they look at

00:35:26.880 anybody who doesn't toe the line with their perspective and with their agenda for the future.

00:35:31.980 And, um, they'll do whatever it takes to get you out of the conversation. Uh, and in my case,

00:35:37.380 it was, you know, that kind of smear character assassination, uh, mockery minimizing. And, uh, also it

00:35:44.700 was quite disappointing how, how easily people bought it. I mean, it's true. They're good.

00:35:50.200 What they do, uh, the smear machine, but it was a little disappointing how easily, uh, how easy,

00:35:56.040 what an easy time they had. Uh, and I couldn't help, but wonder if it might not have been so easy

00:36:01.740 for them if I were a man. Oh, a hundred percent. There was sexism involved in the way they covered

00:36:06.500 you. There's zero doubt of that. And, and, you know, you see it from organizations like the times

00:36:11.840 that, you know, they want to consider themselves so woke and so on on the side of progressives.

00:36:16.100 That's the same paper that referred to Melania Trump as a mannequin. Um, and you know, that

00:36:21.780 tried to diminish you and try to diminish me. If you're not, if you don't hold their exact politics,

00:36:26.940 right. And you're forgive me, but just short form, I think a little closer to like a Bernie

00:36:32.200 than maybe to a Biden that's threatening in the same way. And they didn't like Tulsi. They didn't

00:36:38.140 like you. They certainly don't like me. And yet, you know, they hold themselves up as these fair,

00:36:43.520 impartial moral arbiters. We're going to sort of keep the train running straight on the tracks.

00:36:49.320 Um, you tell me, what was it about you? Do you think that actually turned them off?

00:36:55.720 Well, first of all, the very fact that I was there, that I had the audacity, you know,

00:36:59.980 like who let you in? And the answer is James Madison, uh, let you in. This is the United States

00:37:06.260 of America. You know, Susan B. Anthony helped certainly. Um, uh, you know, even Eisenhower said that

00:37:12.880 politics should be the part-time profession of every American, this idea that the rest of us

00:37:17.720 are supposed to stay in our lane. I would hear that stay in your lane. What they have done is

00:37:22.920 created the illusion that a political class should be running things. This country was founded on a

00:37:28.460 repudiation of an aristocracy, whether that is an economic aristocracy, whether it is a political

00:37:33.680 aristocracy, that's what this country is not supposed to be. And the fact that we have,

00:37:38.360 have, uh, we are reenacting, uh, an aristocratic system is not good news. Uh, so, uh, yeah, it was

00:37:48.020 an inconvenience to them. And I think they figured when I was on the debate stage the first time,

00:37:52.780 oh, it's a joke. She can't do any harm. And look, I understand that in my nervousness,

00:37:57.340 I said a couple things in ways, whether it has to do with girlfriend you're on, or I'll meet you

00:38:02.880 in a field of love. I understand that in my nervousness, I gave them some ammunition,

00:38:06.980 but I also understand that I said many things on those debate stages that I'm very proud to have

00:38:12.060 said that I think needed to be said. And I think some very serious people realize that

00:38:16.120 after the second debate, they knew, oh, wait, we got to get rid of her because she could be an 1.00

00:38:21.900 inconvenience. If she continues to talk about things like environmental injustice, reparations,

00:38:27.000 things which I had brought up on the stage, uh, that are in fact, uh, challenging, uh, to the

00:38:34.840 neoliberal economic order of both democratic and Republican politics. So they, uh, came after me,

00:38:41.100 but, uh, I'm here on, I, and, uh, well, and you have changed out of the road, but I'm here.

00:38:47.860 You helped change the conversation. And I, I mean, I think that's also what Tulsi Gabbard did and why

00:38:52.140 she's received similar treatment. You know, you're not allowed to challenge their orthodoxy and even

00:38:58.280 Trump, he was experiencing the same thing over on the Republican side back in 2016,

00:39:02.340 because he did not sound like the other guys up there. You know what I mean? In a way you guys are

00:39:07.660 similar. Uh, forgive me. I know you're not his fan, but I'm just saying in a way you're similar.

00:39:11.280 I understand the, the way in which you mean that. I want to tell you something that Tulsi Gabbard

00:39:15.880 said to me, uh, the last time I saw her, she was still in office. The, her term was not over yet.

00:39:21.080 And she said something interesting to me. She said, you know, it's not that you and I

00:39:27.400 meet meaning Tulsi and Marianne. She said, it's not that you and I saw something the others don't

00:39:34.680 see. It's that we looked at the system and said, I see you. And I thought that was good.

00:39:42.580 Pretty interesting.

00:39:43.420 Well, there's no question. And I've heard you say this before that the system conspired

00:39:49.300 to keep Bernie down and elevate Hillary back in 2016. There's no question at all. And there's

00:39:55.140 a large faction in the democratic party that wanted to hear his ideas and might've gotten

00:39:59.120 behind him. But I mean, it was a complete media blackout and smear campaign.

00:40:04.280 It's not just the democratic party that wanted to hear him. The country wanted to hear him.

00:40:09.260 You know, in 2016, if the DNC had just kept their fingers off the scale and we know now,

00:40:15.420 I mean, they admit in court, they had their fingers on the scale. If, if they had just

00:40:19.760 kept their fingers off the scale, either Hillary or Bernie would have won the primary, but whoever

00:40:25.460 would have won, the Democrats would have felt good about the process of the primary. And then

00:40:30.760 I don't think Trump would have won the presidency. Um, this idea that the end, uh, justifies

00:40:37.320 the means must be replaced by the Gandhian principle that the end is inherent in the

00:40:42.260 means. You can't say, I'm going to compromise my integrity because what I want to do with

00:40:46.500 it ultimately is a good thing. Once I get the power, you have to seek to exercise the power

00:40:51.520 from the beginning, even gain power, uh, from a place of integrity or else it will, the whole

00:40:56.660 thing will crash and burn. And on a certain level, you will deserve it.

00:40:59.380 When I was reading up about some of the things that you've written and your beliefs, I thought,

00:41:06.160 how, how can any of these beliefs about putting out more love in the world and eschewing fear

00:41:11.780 and rejecting what society tells us is important competition, good grades, more money, material

00:41:17.980 goods. How can that, how can those two things live together in a politician? Right? Like how I,

00:41:25.160 how did Hillary Clinton get ahead by doing all the things that you say are in the fear category? 0.85

00:41:31.380 Listen, this country elected Abraham Lincoln, this country elected Thomas Jefferson, this country

00:41:37.320 elected Franklin Roosevelt. I don't think the problem is where the people are in their head.

00:41:44.240 The American people would love to elect someone who genuinely embodies and represents those principles

00:41:52.820 of basic human dignity and decency and ethics within the public sphere. The American people are hungry

00:41:59.380 for it. The American people are ready for it. And I say that as someone who has campaigned,

00:42:03.980 the people are not the problem. If you look at poll after poll after poll on issue after issue after

00:42:10.400 issue, the American people are not the problem. The problem is that we have a political system

00:42:17.260 that actually suppresses the will of the people because it does more to serve the will and the

00:42:24.940 short term profit maximization goals of their corporate donors than the safety, the well-being

00:42:31.920 of, and health of the people they serve and the planet on which we live. So it's really important that we

00:42:40.880 not say, oh, people would never vote for that. Give people an opportunity

00:42:44.340 to vote for that. And I think the people would vote for that and will vote for that because somehow

00:42:49.720 we are going to make that happen. I can see though, I mean, I will tell you just maybe it's a blessing

00:42:57.340 that you didn't get the nomination because having been in media for as long as I have, I can tell you

00:43:02.040 that it is hard in certain arenas to pursue love. It is very hard to live a life anchored in love versus

00:43:08.580 fear as we discuss those terms in certain professions, including media. It was one of

00:43:14.380 the reasons I had to leave cable. I mean, all you do there is stoke fears. All you do is appeal to

00:43:19.880 people's most base fears and instincts. And it's not uplifting in any way, nor is it designed to be.

00:43:27.260 It's one of the things I like about my new lane, the digital lane, where you can talk about much,

00:43:33.380 much more than just the scariest, worst, most divisive things. You can talk about the news,

00:43:38.400 you can empower people with information, but you can do it in a way that is genuinely enlightening as

00:43:43.420 opposed to just trying to scare people. Yeah, but look at you're an example. Look at independent

00:43:49.660 media. People are turning away from corporate media. People are turning away from the cable

00:43:55.480 stations that you're talking about. Where are people going? People are looking to independent media

00:44:00.360 like yourself, like so many others for that very reason, because people are sick of it. At a certain

00:44:07.060 point, you've just eaten so much junk food, you really actually want a vegetable. And so I think

00:44:12.300 in the political system, it's the same thing. People are hungry for something else. And it's the,

00:44:19.140 unfortunately, it's the, you know, it's the system itself being so held hostage, beginning with the

00:44:26.180 political parties, also with the money that floods the system that is keeping the people from being

00:44:31.920 able to express their will. And I think of myself, less like a vegetable, more like a, like a mimosa.

00:44:39.160 Like there's some stuff in there that may not be perfectly good for you, but overall, you're going

00:44:44.000 to feel good. There's some vitamins and you're going to get a little bit of mimosa going on. I've got a

00:44:48.440 tequila going on. Yeah. All right. Standby. Great place to pause it. We are not them. And what the

00:44:57.540 system has done is to say that we're the weird ones. And more and more people are recognizing

00:45:01.620 no for the weird ones. They are carrying forward an agenda that is based on bad ideas left over from

00:45:06.940 the 20th century. And it's time for us to enter the 21st. Marianne Williams said this is so fun.

00:45:13.000 You're even greater than I thought you'd be. Standby. Much more to do with you. And actually,

00:45:18.240 I do want to ask you about your weight loss book because it's, I don't know, who doesn't want to

00:45:21.460 hear some thoughts on how to lose that extra five pounds. Much, much more to go over. And remember,

00:45:25.720 folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon

00:45:31.340 east and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash

00:45:36.800 Megan Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast, go ahead, go on over there. Do me a favor, subscribe and

00:45:43.880 download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've told you

00:45:48.220 before I read all the reviews on the Apple service. And they've been wonderful. Thank you

00:45:53.640 so much for all the great feedback on RFK. Really, really appreciate it. And I'm still reading them

00:45:58.880 every morning. So don't forget, go on over there and let me know what you think about today's show

00:46:02.300 or any other. And you'll also find our full archives while you're there. More than 280 shows now.

00:46:06.820 We've got Marianne Williamson with us today, author, spiritual leader and founder of the

00:46:17.480 nonprofit Project Angel Food. She made news when she ran for president. And when we come back, I'm

00:46:24.080 going to ask her after this break about this debate moment from 2019. Sorry, we haven't talked more

00:46:30.420 tonight about how we're going to beat Donald Trump. I have an idea about Donald Trump. Donald

00:46:35.620 Trump is not going to be beaten just by insider politics talk. He's not going to be beaten just

00:46:40.640 by somebody who has plans. He's going to be beaten by somebody who has an idea of what this man has

00:46:45.720 done. This man has reached into the psyche of the American people and he has harnessed fear for

00:46:50.880 political purposes. So, Mr. President, if you're listening, I want you to hear me, please. You have

00:46:57.100 harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out. So I, sir, I have a feeling you

00:47:03.120 know what you're doing. I'm going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field

00:47:08.740 and, sir, love will win. That's next. Don't miss it. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

00:47:18.560 So, Marianne, how about that soundbite, that direct invitation to Trump?

00:47:22.140 I don't think you're wrong that Trump has appealed to people's fear. I think it's what virtually every

00:47:29.120 single politician everywhere does other than you, right? Like he's not alone in that approach.

00:47:35.880 So what do you make now of that messaging and, you know, how it worked?

00:47:39.680 I think it was very damaging to the country. I think that he harnessed the lower aspects of

00:47:46.780 human consciousness that dwell within us all. I think when Abraham Lincoln talked about the better

00:47:52.760 angels of our nature, that's something very real, the best that we are capable of. And then there is

00:47:59.360 the worst that we are capable of, the rage, the bigotry. You know, when I was younger, nobody who is

00:48:09.200 a conscious, intelligent observer would ever suggest that we never had racists, we never had bigots,

00:48:15.480 we never had anti-Semites, we never had homophobes, we never had xenophobes. Of course,

00:48:20.840 we have always had those people. Well, you know, we're human beings. But when I was younger,

00:48:26.000 we had reached a consensus in this country that those were fringe elements and neither major

00:48:31.420 political party would ever seek to harness, at that point, would ever want again to harness any of

00:48:38.460 those forces for political purposes. Those levies fell with social media, and then through a politician

00:48:46.460 who was not above seeking to harness those forces for his own political purposes. This is a terrible

00:48:52.880 thing to happen in any society. And I hope that more and more people will reject that kind of

00:49:01.960 demagoguery, both as Republicans and as Democrats, so that we can get back to a far more noble politics.

00:49:09.240 I'm not naive about the history of the United States. I'm not saying that we've ever embodied

00:49:14.140 fully the principles on which we purport to stand. But I'm old enough to remember a time when there was

00:49:21.140 at least a social consensus that we were supposed to try. We were supposed to try to be good. And we have

00:49:28.200 to get back to that intention underlying our politics, whether we are on the left or on the

00:49:33.520 right, that no political positioning should be at the expense of our basic decency and dignity as

00:49:40.480 human beings. I do believe that we're getting there. What specifically? Because, you know, in the same way

00:49:45.040 the media misrepresented you, they misrepresented Trump a fair amount. That's not to defend everything

00:49:49.560 he said or did. But what what are you referring to?

00:49:52.200 When the president would talk a certain ways, not about women, when he would talk certain ways

00:49:59.260 about Mexicans, when he would talk certain ways about protesters, you know, there was there was a

00:50:05.480 man. He was in Portland, right? And it was reported that he might be Antifa. He was sitting on a he was

00:50:13.260 sitting on a sidewalk right now in America that you and I grew up in. Now, remember that we learned this

00:50:21.520 in school. We have laws of due process. And if you think someone might have done something wrong,

00:50:28.400 then the police, if there was a reason, might arrest that person. And then that person will have the

00:50:35.900 rights of the accused. And if that person has behaved criminally and is prosecuted by the system,

00:50:43.160 then they will be held accountable accordingly. That's not what happened there. That was an extra

00:50:49.020 judicial killing. They just went and they killed him. And the president of the United States said, 0.96

00:50:54.760 we got him. Megan, that's police state stuff. That is police state stuff. Whether you're a Democrat,

00:51:04.500 Republican, right, left, that's police state stuff. We don't do that in America. And to hear the

00:51:10.820 president of the United States speak that way. And also, hello, there is absolutely no evidence.

00:51:17.560 Judges who have been appointed by Trump, as well as judges that were appointed by

00:51:22.120 Democratic presidents and elected by the people. In case after case after case, no evidence was found,

00:51:30.680 no evidence was proven that had anything to do with the idea that this was not a fair election

00:51:36.080 in 2020. And this man is still saying it was rigged. We're still finding out things about

00:51:42.740 ways that he and his administration, certainly, allegedly, something went on there, things that

00:51:50.460 we know were not so great. He's still saying it. But to me, even the way he's talking about the

00:51:55.620 election today is just a continuation of a pattern of deep disrespect for democratic principles,

00:52:04.040 deep, deep disrespect for the laws and the traditions of the United States. And to me,

00:52:09.720 that has nothing to do, actually, with whether someone is a Democrat or a Republican. That's

00:52:15.100 demagoguery. And that's the dismantling of our democratic system.

00:52:19.900 So let me ask you a question on this, because, you know, I'm not going to defend Trump on all of his

00:52:23.700 comments. And, you know, that's a losing battle. But I will say this. You raise, for example,

00:52:29.520 the issue of due process. Trump so often made controversial comments where you're like,

00:52:34.260 what is he saying? Why would he say that dumbass thing to say? But then when you looked at the way 0.99

00:52:41.440 he behaved, it was redemptive. And on the issue of due process, that's a great one, right? So,

00:52:48.000 OK, you shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have made that comment. However, how did he behave

00:52:52.060 in office? You know what Trump did through Betsy DeVos? He restored due process for young men who got

00:52:57.560 accused on college campuses of being sexual predators or harassers, something Obama had taken away from

00:53:03.240 them. And Biden right now is working to take away again after Trump restored it. So that's that

00:53:08.360 affects hundreds of thousands of people across the country, at least. I mean, I don't know how many

00:53:13.900 men are in college right now. I don't know if they have a number. But so that's one area. Yes,

00:53:19.600 he made terrible comments about women. Hello, I'm aware. But who signed the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act

00:53:25.720 when they actually get something they'd been pushing to get through? They couldn't get it through

00:53:28.720 under Obama. They finally got it through under Trump. Donald Trump signed it like

00:53:32.380 I'm not saying the man was perfect. But, you know, when I look at I'm not going to and I'm not going

00:53:36.560 to excuse his rhetoric. But when I look at how he actually legislated, how he governed,

00:53:40.820 I could defend him on virtually any of these subjects. Well, the fact that he did some things

00:53:46.460 that you and I might agree with does not does not make unimportant the things he did, which were

00:53:56.120 actually horrible. He did not just make the comment we got him. They shot and killed him,

00:54:01.700 Megan. This was not just a comment. This was not just a rude comment. This was the police going

00:54:06.720 over to a guy and just killing him. And then the president of the United States saying we got him

00:54:11.640 now. OK, I don't know the facts of that case. So I'm not able to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not

00:54:17.120 something that was like hidden or anything. Well, I'm not going to I'm not going to defend that. No,

00:54:20.180 I'm not going to defend that. But I see a president now who defends Black Lives Matter

00:54:23.560 protesters who are out there in the streets killing, killing David Dorn, hurting 2000 police

00:54:28.960 officers. I'm not. None of this is defensible, but you just good luck finding the president who's

00:54:34.200 going to completely uphold all of the things that are important to you in the way that you want them

00:54:39.260 upheld. I have some serious disagreements with the president, President Biden. But the places where

00:54:46.200 I have serious disagreements with him are places where he's actually continued policies of the Trump

00:54:52.000 administration. And, you know, no president is I don't think anybody's been like all good,

00:54:58.400 all bad. You can point to some things that Trump did, such as the ones that you that you

00:55:05.740 mentioned that many of us could have legitimate approval of. But I think the bigger picture is

00:55:13.520 something very, very dark. When Steve Bannon said that they were coming to to Washington to

00:55:19.100 dismantle the administrative state, I think that's exactly what they tried to do. You know,

00:55:24.560 starting with with Reagan saying that government is the problem. I think that there are people in

00:55:31.040 this country, I think it started with the Koch brothers in the 1970s, who put the primacy of

00:55:36.520 property rights, exalt them to such an extent that even as the Koch brothers said at the time, in order

00:55:44.580 for this absolutism of property rights to be protected, democracy itself must be held in

00:55:50.300 chains. And that is what these people sought to do. That is what they are seeking to do right now

00:55:55.340 with voter suppression laws around the country. I don't think that this should even be seen as a

00:56:00.340 right left, right left issue. You know, Eisenhower said that the American mind at its best

00:56:05.940 is both liberal and conservative. We are e pluribus unum. We are different political views. We are

00:56:12.740 different ideologies. We are different cultures. We are different ethnicities. We are different

00:56:17.140 sexuality. But there must be some unifying principles on which we agree to agree. And

00:56:23.680 the president, even though you can, President Trump, even though you can see particular issues

00:56:27.520 where you might say, well, that was pretty good. I thought some of his stuff on China was pretty good

00:56:30.800 also, by the way, some of his commentary on China. But the point is, the deeper issue of respect

00:56:36.600 for law as it is written in the U.S. Constitution, whether it is Biden that is behaving in an outrageous

00:56:43.920 way or it is Trump that is behaving in an outrageous way, we shouldn't respond to these things just as

00:56:49.920 Republicans or Democrats. We should respond to them as Americans. You know, to me, it's so aggravating

00:56:55.120 because the media covered, you know, everything Trump did, you know, to the nth degree. And let's

00:57:01.580 not even get into Russiagate, which was fake and made up. But you talk about respect for norms.

00:57:07.780 I covered the Obama administration night after night after night after night. And I listened

00:57:10.940 to President Obama himself say he had no more room on executive action when it came to immigration

00:57:15.840 reform. He was out of tricks. The bag was empty. He'd done everything he could do and said, I'm not a

00:57:21.800 king. I'm out. And then he did more. And then he did the dreamer executive order and so on.

00:57:26.960 And and that was extra. That was that was lawless. That was not respectful of the Constitution. And

00:57:32.680 then now I see Joe Biden do things like the eviction moratorium, which he knew he knew was

00:57:38.100 unlawful. He knew the Supreme Court was not going to uphold it. And he he did it anyway. But he knew

00:57:43.720 it was lawless. And sure enough, it got struck down. And the same thing with the with the mandate

00:57:47.860 on the vaccines. He knew it was going to get struck down, but he did it anyway. So I I mean, you could

00:57:54.540 go on and on about the lawlessness of our of our leaders. But you have to make the case on both

00:58:00.500 sides. This this president has behaved in an in a lawless way as well. You know, the the and what

00:58:07.360 was done to President Trump? Look, the Democrats have no high ground. There is no high ground that

00:58:12.780 they cannot sit and point to him and say, how dare you deny the facts when it comes to his loss? I

00:58:18.600 don't support. I Trump did lose. He lost. There's there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

00:58:24.380 And a lot of my listeners don't like to hear me say, well, that's the case. That's not to say it

00:58:29.760 wasn't rigged to help the Democrats. It was look back at what they did to The New York Post reporting

00:58:34.000 on Hunter Biden. Right. But I'm just saying, if we're going to be based on reality, let's be based

00:58:37.820 in reality. And this president misleads us at every turn. And the media misleads us at every turn when it

00:58:43.920 comes to media, when it comes to Russiagate, I mean, and I could go on and we're supposed to just

00:58:48.920 look at the orange man bad and blame it all on him. And I'm sitting here as somebody who is never

00:58:54.860 a huge Trump supporter saying these are lies and this is biased and it's unfair and really hating

00:59:02.500 everyone. That's where I live. You know, but even what you just said, stay stuck in the us versus them. 0.98

00:59:09.700 Even what you're just saying, stay stuck in the right versus left. I don't think it's right versus

00:59:14.360 wrong. That's where I am. I'm right versus wrong. That's what I, but to me, there's a much bigger

00:59:20.200 story here going on than just what Biden did or what Trump did. And that is what both major political

00:59:26.440 parties support. Both may, both Biden and Trump continued the oil drilling, the, the fossil fuel

00:59:35.340 extraction, which is destroying this planet. We have to do it because we, it's to help like the

00:59:42.760 people who need to power their houses and need cheap energy cannot get by, um, with the prices

00:59:50.580 that we are going to impose on them. If we try to make this work on solar and wind turbines,

00:59:55.200 and that's really clear. I'm all for cleaning up the environment. I'm a mom. I don't want to pass on a

00:59:59.920 crappy earth to my children, but I understand the, the support for fossil fuels for now,

01:00:05.680 or there's slow weaning off of them because we need cheap energy.

01:00:09.640 You know, when Jimmy Carter was president, he had solar panels on top of the white house.

01:00:14.600 And then one of the first things that Ronald Reagan did was to take them off. If we had started a just

01:00:20.120 transition to clean energy back when Jimmy Carter first talked about it, we would not be vulnerable

01:00:25.200 to Russia the way we are right now. And I disagree with you about what is possible. You know, this used

01:00:31.540 to be a country that knew how to respond to emergencies. This used to be a country that knew

01:00:35.960 how to do whatever it took to make sure that our children's lives would be okay. We have, uh, you were

01:00:41.880 talking about president Trump, uh, in the, um, uh, defense budget that the, uh, president Biden has just,

01:00:48.400 uh, uh, uh, put forth, uh, there is 18 times more expenditure on the military than on climate

01:00:55.740 change mitigation. The president could declare a national, uh, climate emergency. We could take

01:01:01.460 a warp speed effort, make a warp speed effort, employing the national defense production act

01:01:06.600 and move towards a just transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy. This isn't just about

01:01:12.620 what something's going to cost. It's about the fact we're going to cost, uh, the cost here at this

01:01:17.540 point could be the survival of the human race. And we could do it. If when you say we just can't do

01:01:22.840 it, yes, we could do it, but not, you know, we can do it with nuclear. We could do it with nuclear.

01:01:27.940 Some people would argue with that. I have concern about that, but they are moving forward more

01:01:32.740 quickly on fission than they had expected to be able to. In the meantime, there are so much more

01:01:37.980 that could be done with solar. So much more could be done, uh, with wind farms. So much more could be

01:01:42.820 done if we were to, to apply the resources once again, 18 times more in this budget to be spent

01:01:49.640 on the military than to be spent on climate change mitigation. But let me ask you about that. Okay.

01:01:54.160 Let me, let me, let me respond to that because one of the reasons that he wants to spend more on the

01:01:57.560 military and defense is because there's a belief that deterrence works on, on stopping things like

01:02:04.100 what we're seeing in Ukraine right now, that if we had a more robust military, if we had a stronger,

01:02:07.680 um, sort of messaging, uh, and, and real threats that Vladimir Putin believed that perhaps he

01:02:13.520 wouldn't do things like this in the future. Okay. Cause this is like an old belief that deterrence

01:02:17.320 works if exercised properly and with a strong bicep. Right. And, and, and the president's critics

01:02:24.360 now would say he should have been doing that all along. We should have been sort of exercising our

01:02:28.600 military might, reminding Vladimir Putin who we are, who America is, what we're capable of,

01:02:33.280 as opposed to having the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal while allowing Putin to fill his

01:02:38.360 coffers with Germany's money, which is bait, you know, totally dependent on Russia for its energy,

01:02:42.920 right? Because Russia shut or Germany shut down its nuclear power plants. Germany's completely

01:02:47.380 dependent on Vladimir Putin. So in your world, right? Like this is the pushback in these positions

01:02:53.900 that this attempt to go green by Angela Merkel weakened Germany, empowered Vladimir Putin. And at the same

01:03:00.940 time while we were trying to BFF it up with Vladimir Putin by not criticizing Nord Stream 2,

01:03:05.960 which we should have been, which we were doing under Trump, we were stopping it. Uh, we were weakening

01:03:09.680 our own position and helping pave the way for a, for a war in Ukraine. Well, now Biden has realized

01:03:14.840 none of that works. Putin's in Ukraine. The Nord Stream 2 was a disaster and we need to build up our 0.53

01:03:20.980 military again because not flexing the muscle going into the fetal position was a disaster. Okay.

01:03:26.720 That's the other side's argument. Okay. Do I get to talk now? Now it's yours. First of all,

01:03:31.580 okay. First of all, the military, uh, we have 7,000 nuclear bombs in our arsenal that we know of,

01:03:38.220 and they're now budgeting trillions more on developing more in the future.

01:03:43.160 The obvious, if anything is obvious now, it's that the principle of mutually assured, uh,

01:03:48.080 destruction did not work. It only works if you're dealing with a rational actor, which Putin has proven

01:03:53.960 at this point that he has not. So if we had 50 in our arsenal, how would it be any different than

01:03:59.580 having 7,000 in our arsenal? And I don't think that the problem is that, um, Putin doubts, uh,

01:04:07.880 our military power. Uh, the issue going on is everybody knows is that our leaders and the

01:04:12.700 leaders of Europe do not want to start world war three. I'm, I'm very happy to see the kind of

01:04:18.560 strength and power of the Western Alliance, uh, the United States and Europeans. I think that they

01:04:24.120 have shown, um, uh, Vladimir Putin, our resolve. It was never an issue of, uh, how much military power

01:04:32.500 we have. It was an issue of how much resolve we have. And that is what he did not expect. And we

01:04:37.540 have shown that those, that resolve, uh, both with, uh, military aid to Ukraine, as well as with

01:04:43.820 sanctions. So, uh, having a bigger military at this point would make absolutely no difference,

01:04:49.640 uh, to what is going on in, in Ukraine. That's that now on the issue of, of the, um, environment,

01:04:57.540 the fact that we are so vulnerable, uh, to oil and gas from, from Russia is the problem. If we had

01:05:04.980 already, the fact that now we're going begging MBS, we're begging Saudi Arabia for oil, we're begging

01:05:12.040 Venezuela for oil. This is not, if we had moved into green energy, into clean energy over the last

01:05:18.860 few years, when we should have, we wouldn't, we, we wouldn't need, need to be horsed to Russia.

01:05:23.680 We don't need to be doing it now. What do you mean we were energy independent two years ago under

01:05:28.080 Donald Trump when we were using not just oil, but natural gas. There's nothing wrong with natural gas.

01:05:34.360 Well, you know what? Now, wait a minute. Let's just pull back a little bit. Uh, you and I,

01:05:39.400 uh, this is America. We don't in America, there's a free society. We don't all have to agree on

01:05:44.460 everything. You say there's nothing wrong with natural gas. A lot of people have a lot of problems

01:05:48.680 with that. It doesn't even have to be either or we, even if you do believe there's no problem

01:05:54.840 with natural gas, it is indisputable that we could have moved much quicker and that it is the

01:06:00.660 resistance of the fossil fuel companies that are keeping us from developing the kind of, of clean

01:06:06.520 energy system that will both protect us, uh, protect the earth, protect the ability of our

01:06:11.820 children to breathe, protect the ability of our children to not be the effect of these horrifying

01:06:16.580 weather catastrophes. And we keep America from having to, to, to compromise our own ideals in order

01:06:23.360 to get, uh, uh, to get, um, uh, oil and, uh, any kind of energy from these petro states, which are

01:06:29.840 autocratic, uh, autocratic ethnonationalist states with which we should not be doing business.

01:06:36.800 The, um, this is from Michael Schellenberger who wrote the book Apocalypse Never, uh, which is well

01:06:42.020 worth the time. Number one, no nation has decarbonized its electricity supply with solar and

01:06:48.700 wind. The only successful decarbonization efforts have been achieved with nuclear. Had Germany spent on 0.65

01:06:55.180 nuclear, what they spent instead on renewables, both places would already have 100% clean power.

01:07:02.200 Um, the problem is that every time anti-nuclear climate campaigners succeed in closing a nuclear

01:07:07.340 plant, wherever it is, the burning of fossil fuels and carbon emissions go up. Nuclear is a reasonable

01:07:12.700 answer to all of this. And it is eschewed, demonized, and rejected by virtually all of the Democrat

01:07:19.320 party. And it's a shame because it could have helped California. It could have helped the United

01:07:24.080 States. It certainly could have helped Germany. Uh, they went a different way. Look at France.

01:07:28.400 France went nuclear. Germany tried to do renewables, didn't work, had to go to Putin to

01:07:32.640 back, backdoor supply their energy supply. And now energy is at least one third cheaper in France than

01:07:39.420 it is in Germany. Like these, these pie in the sky policies have been tried. They, they were tried in

01:07:44.360 Vermont. They didn't work. They were tried in Germany. They didn't work. I like the all in approach.

01:07:49.160 I like a fine. We don't want to work on wind turbines, want to work on solar. I'm all for it.

01:07:54.020 If we can find a way of supplementing and getting there in a more reasonable way, but that those two

01:07:59.060 are not going to do it alone. And it was no time to stop drilling in America. And it was no time to

01:08:03.060 turn off the fossil fuel faucet like Biden did. And like Merkel did, um, excuse me, because I think

01:08:08.900 Biden has given more permits for oil drilling than Trump did. Unfortunately, we, we have not stopped

01:08:16.660 oil drilling. Biden has been threatening the oil industry. He, they know very well that he will

01:08:22.100 hit them with more regulations than they could ever operate through. They are on record as saying

01:08:27.260 that's why some of those permits are still outstanding. See where you and I disagree on

01:08:32.320 this is I think we're talking about the survival of our planet here. We're talking about the survival

01:08:36.420 of the human race. And we're talking about the survival of the people now that's all well and good

01:08:40.000 for like, you know, a hundred years from now, I get it. And I don't want three feet oceans though.

01:08:43.940 I'm also told that two feet oceans we can handle and it's already happened in places and it's being

01:08:48.000 handled, but it's all well and good for you and I as Americans to sit here and say, Oh, you know,

01:08:52.940 the earth, what about people who are in truly socioeconomically deprived areas that genuinely

01:08:59.460 need fossil fuels to survive? They cannot afford the energy.

01:09:02.940 The people, the people in these economically deprived areas are the people who are already 0.90

01:09:07.520 experiencing the droughts who are people. If we do not make a transition to clean energy, 0.96

01:09:13.100 if we continue oil, fossil fuel extraction at the way we are, we could get to the point in

01:09:19.900 within 15 years of such a, a, a raised temperature, saturating entire swaths of continents where the

01:09:30.120 temperature is so high that your food systems collapse, your economic systems collapse, and we

01:09:34.780 could have millions, even hundreds of millions of climate refugees. But I think more.

01:09:39.540 That's not true. That is definitely not true within the next 15 years. That is an overstatement.

01:09:44.560 Megan, you and I are both better than this. You and I are both better than this. You have

01:09:49.080 mentioned some legitimate points of debate. I have mentioned legitimate points of debate.

01:09:53.920 I don't think either one of us are saying things that are not true.

01:09:58.180 What you just said is not true.

01:10:00.620 Okay. What is it that you're saying that I'm saying that's not true?

01:10:04.040 Within 15 years?

01:10:05.360 The raising of the temperature is absolutely true.

01:10:08.080 Within 15 years? No, it's not. Look, we've had policy experts on this.

01:10:10.920 How far, hold on. So how long do you think, if we continue at the rate of fossil fuel extraction

01:10:16.000 that we are doing now, so how long is it, do you think, before you have a-

01:10:19.980 We've already peaked on our carbon emissions. We've already peaked on our carbon emissions in the

01:10:23.180 United States. Several of the countries have already peaked on their carbon emissions.

01:10:26.100 What we're looking at is 75, 100 years out, a possible two-foot rise in the oceans.

01:10:32.220 And there are ways of working around that. And it's not a great thing, but it's not as

01:10:37.080 catastrophic as the Greta Thunbergs of the world would have you believe. They're suggesting it's

01:10:41.760 going to happen in 10 years and 15 years. We heard that from AOC. It isn't true. 15 years from now,

01:10:47.040 that's not going to be happening.

01:10:49.940 Well, maybe we'll talk 15 years from now. You know, it's like what you can do with numbers.

01:10:54.720 Kerry was saying this 10 years ago, and here we are. We're just fine. So look, it's alarmism.

01:11:00.480 That's why Michael Schellenberger called his book Apocalypse Never, because we've been told for

01:11:05.740 years now, it's coming. It's coming in five years, coming in 15 years, coming in 10 years.

01:11:09.100 That's not true. It's real. It's a problem. I'm not denying that. But alarmism about it's 15 years

01:11:16.620 from now is not true. Well, you have huge ice shelves that are falling off right now

01:11:22.260 at the polls. So you're already seeing that. You're already seeing huge weather catastrophes.

01:11:29.420 We're already being told that the fires have gone down. They've gone down.

01:11:33.500 We're being told that the fires in California by 2030 will be one third higher than they are now.

01:11:42.180 But more than this, you and I disagree on fossil fuel extraction. You and I are having,

01:11:51.220 could be just having a conversation about the use of nuclear power to generate energy. But I think

01:11:57.240 that what you and I as American women can be demonstrating right now is not insulting the

01:12:02.860 views of the others. The fact that some people feel so strongly-

01:12:05.620 Marianne, this is not a question about insulting. I'm fact-checking you.

01:12:08.820 15 years is not true. No, no, no. Well, things that you've read say that it's not true.

01:12:15.800 Things that I have read, also very legitimate climate scientists.

01:12:18.940 What specifically? Because Michael Schellenberger is an actual expert on this who worked for Greenpeace,

01:12:23.360 who worked on the Obama-Sylinder deal, who believed in solar and renewables and devoted his entire life

01:12:28.480 to it, only discovered through firsthand experience it was not workable. And he is the one who has

01:12:35.380 written, for example, and I mean, I'll tell you this. Climate change does not threaten the existence

01:12:40.260 of our planet. Deaths from hurricanes have declined 90 percent in 100 years. Deaths from natural disasters

01:12:46.080 are at their lowest level in 120 years. I could go on. He's the one pushing for nuclear. He's a true

01:12:52.280 expert. You're not. But I've had him on the show repeatedly. You're not an expert on climate change.

01:12:57.660 And Megan, I'm not. And you are not. And he might be.

01:13:02.540 I'm citing an expert for you. Do you dispute those facts here?

01:13:06.140 Well, you're misrepresenting.

01:13:08.200 There are hundreds of climate scientists, Nobel Prize laureates, some of the greatest

01:13:13.340 client scientists in the world who disagree with him.

01:13:18.040 And there are hundreds on his side as well.

01:13:20.440 There's only the most extreme people are putting it in terms of 10, 15 years.

01:13:25.380 And then politicians should run who represent one view or another. And you would support the

01:13:31.420 politicians who represent the idea that fossil fuel extraction is OK. I would represent politicians

01:13:39.580 who feel that making a warp speed transition away from fossil fuel extraction is in the best

01:13:46.160 interest of the country.

01:13:47.760 That's fine.

01:13:48.360 That's a democracy. That's right.

01:13:50.180 I'm not taking an issue with your beliefs or what you want to run on or what you want

01:13:55.000 people to vote for. That's up to you. My only job in this seat is to stay factual and to

01:14:00.960 correct people when they misstate facts. And I'll do it to the left.

01:14:03.620 One man. One man's book. Listen, I write books.

01:14:06.320 It's not just one man.

01:14:07.180 Somebody wrote it in a book. Doesn't mean, you know, we wrote in a book. There are many climate

01:14:10.940 scientists who say the opposite.

01:14:12.800 Marianne.

01:14:13.000 And it's up to everybody to investigate the material themselves.

01:14:16.380 With respect, I am in the business of having fair and balanced debates. I had a debate on this

01:14:22.220 very show with someone who is more aligned with your views and someone who is more aligned with

01:14:27.220 Michael Schellenberger's views. Two totally different people. No one put it at 15 years

01:14:32.720 like you have. It's my job to keep us within the factual realm. That's where we are. I'm going to leave

01:14:40.240 it at that. People can go back and listen to that podcast. They can listen to the many we've done with

01:14:44.180 Michael Schellenberger. They can listen to you and look up Greta Thunberg and John Kerry and

01:14:48.780 everyone's views. That's what they should do. But people come to me because they trust me not to be

01:14:53.320 a partisan on things like this. And I'm not.

01:14:56.160 Okay, let's shift gears and talk about President Biden, because he was, of course, running against

01:15:05.660 you when you were trying to become the nominee. And of course, obviously wound up winning not just

01:15:10.500 the nomination, but the presidency and now is kind of all over the board on his messaging with respect

01:15:16.320 to Russia. He over the weekend had a comment when he was speaking in Warsaw that certainly suggested

01:15:23.640 like he was calling for a regime change, saying Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power. Then the

01:15:29.400 White House had to walk it back and say what he what he really meant was he just he shouldn't have

01:15:33.560 any power over the neighboring regions, you know, places like Ukraine. That's what he meant.

01:15:38.540 Now, this is like the third or fourth time they've had to walk back something by President Biden has said

01:15:42.820 on Russia and Ukraine in the past 10 days that now he comes out today and says, actually,

01:15:50.180 I stand by what I said. I don't take it back. What I meant was simply it's my personal opinion.

01:15:56.220 Like, come on, man. How could you have a guy like that in power? I'm speaking about my personal

01:16:01.940 opinion, not not calling for regime change. Marianne, I I'd love to know what you think about

01:16:07.600 the conflicting messaging and the presidential White House walkbacks.

01:16:12.820 I think it was a terrible thing to say. I think it was a horrible mistake, actually. The last thing

01:16:17.860 he should be indicating, particularly to the Russian people, is that America is even in on any level

01:16:23.860 thinking about regime change in Russia. The White House was right to walk it back. And I'm glad to

01:16:28.760 hear. I mean, I'm sorry to hear that the president is in any way doubling down today. I think until that

01:16:35.840 point, until that trip to Poland, I do appreciate the tenor of the White House's response. It has been

01:16:44.880 very sober toward in terms of the Ukraine issue. I have supported the issue of military aid when

01:16:53.180 possible, short of dangerous things such as the no fly zone. I've supported the sanctions. However,

01:17:00.060 we should deal with what's happening right now. And that's what the president should be supporting.

01:17:04.420 The Putin does seem to be pivoting. He's withdrawing some troops from you from from the area of Kyiv.

01:17:13.020 He seems to be looking on some level for an exit ramp himself. Zelensky has said that he's open to

01:17:19.660 the idea of of Ukraine being neutral. So the United States should be in every way possible ramping down

01:17:25.560 that kind of language. Macron and other European leaders had a heart dip, very, very critical.

01:17:32.340 We're very critical of those comments by the president, as are you and I. And the United States

01:17:38.020 should be doing everything possible now to support whatever kind of negotiated settlement that there

01:17:43.540 might be. In the meantime, the fact that we've shown Putin that we're tough and that we're serious

01:17:48.040 is a good thing and it was necessary. Paul Begala, who helped get Bill Clinton elected,

01:17:53.820 he's a CNN contributor. He was in the news saying they were great comments by President Biden,

01:17:59.920 the original ones, not the... No, they were not.

01:18:02.520 What his position is, it's another Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, evil empire type moment.

01:18:11.160 Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall was one of the great presidential statements.

01:18:15.300 That's what he said. He's saying this was like that. He's comparing it to that.

01:18:20.260 No. Well, he's wrong. You and I would, I think, agree the fact that Paul Begala is full of it on

01:18:25.080 that. And it was a terrible thing. It was a big mistake. But I think a little bit of much like you

01:18:31.200 were saying before with Trump, you said sometimes it's not just the words. There's redemptive action

01:18:36.780 after. I do disagree with those words. I think they were a terrible thing to say. And in general,

01:18:41.980 the policy of this administration regarding Ukraine is something that I support.

01:18:47.940 How do you get to... This is kind of a fun interview, right? Because we started talking

01:18:53.380 about love and self-help and so on. Then we got hot and heavy into politics and climate change.

01:18:58.520 How do you... Take us back to the original philosophy. How do you look at Donald Trump

01:19:03.560 with love? How do you look at world politics with love? How do you deal with conflict

01:19:09.080 with love in your heart? How do all those life lessons translate into subjects like that?

01:19:16.940 You're married. You can be married to someone. You can be deeply in love with someone. Sometimes

01:19:22.560 you're going to disagree. And you have to be able to fight fair. And you have to be able to disagree.

01:19:28.900 Sometimes people aren't going to see things eye to eye. And I think when it comes to politics,

01:19:33.380 it's more important, not less important, to remember that there must be an honorable center

01:19:39.520 of debate. I don't believe in personally demonizing Trump any more than I believe in personally demonizing

01:19:44.960 Biden, because it tears down the fabric of political debate in this country. It's not that

01:19:52.060 I want to personally demonize the president. I deeply disagree with him. And when it came to Trump,

01:19:57.000 I mean, I would say about every, pretty much every Republican, except George Bush Sr., I didn't vote

01:20:05.460 for him. I thought he was qualified and a decent president. The others, I simply disagree with

01:20:10.540 their politics. This isn't about demonizing them as human beings. Trump, however, takes it to a whole

01:20:16.120 different place if I think he's a man whose personal character and behavior, even politically,

01:20:22.140 was unworthy of the position. But that doesn't mean I don't think he's an innocent child of God.

01:20:27.000 I, he's an innocent child of God. And I, you know, read Mary Trump's book, I understand he was

01:20:32.520 traumatized as a child, etc. But it's like you and I were talking about earlier at the beginning,

01:20:38.740 even about Will Smith, you can know where somebody's bad behavior comes from and still say

01:20:43.680 they must be held accountable for it. And that's how I see politics. George Bush, I could tell he was

01:20:49.400 like a nice guy. His politics, the Iraq war was not nice. And this politics in that sense is a very

01:20:57.660 adult. You have to be very adult and very mature. You have to learn to say no, you have to learn to

01:21:04.560 set boundaries and political relationships, just like in personal relationships. But that doesn't

01:21:09.060 mean you don't see that person and is an innocent child of God, or want to tear them down politically

01:21:13.420 on a personal level. And that tearing down when you were talking about leaving Fox, when you were

01:21:17.500 talking about all cable, you didn't just say Fox. That's what our political conversation that has

01:21:23.320 actually been fostered and exacerbated. Matt Taibbi's book, Hate Inc. Both sides have done it.

01:21:31.340 They actually in order to get ratings, actually foster this mean spiritedness in our political dialogue.

01:21:37.340 And it has done terrible damage to our country. And that's not even counting the social media. I

01:21:42.960 mean, that's Facebook's whole business model. Oh, absolutely. And that's where those levies have

01:21:46.500 fallen. You know, I'll tell you something, an anecdote in my own life experience. It was really

01:21:51.600 interesting to me. It was back during the Clinton presidency. And I was visiting my friend,

01:21:57.700 Dennis Kucinich. He was a congressman at that time. And we were at the Capitol and we were going up to

01:22:03.240 the lunchroom and we were getting into an elevator. And Lindsey Graham at that time was a congressman,

01:22:11.400 not a senator yet, from South Carolina. Dennis is coming in. Dennis and I are coming into the

01:22:15.820 elevator. Lindsey Graham is coming out. And Lindsey Graham at that time was one of the really big

01:22:21.220 attack dogs against then-President Clinton in the lead up to the impeachment. I saw Dennis and

01:22:30.000 Lindsey Graham, hey, Dennis, how you doing? Hey, Lindsey. And they hugged or they patted each other

01:22:34.640 on the back or whatever. And I got in the elevator and I was like, what are you doing? He said, what

01:22:38.860 are you talking about? I said, he's, and then I said all these things about Lindsey Graham because

01:22:43.180 I so disagree with him. He said, Marianne, that's ridiculous. He's a great guy. We work together on a 0.96

01:22:47.760 lot of stuff. He said, what you're talking about is just what you see on television and they foster

01:22:51.820 that and they want you to see that. I never forgot that. And even to this day, believe me,

01:22:56.460 I very much disagree with many of the things that Lindsey Graham is saying today. But I remember

01:23:03.200 what Dennis told me. And I'm old enough to remember how that all started, how that kind

01:23:10.140 of crossfire mentality set us up to hate each other rather than honorably debate each other.

01:23:15.700 We must go back to the better angels of our nature, even when we are discussing politics.

01:23:21.740 Hmm. It's so true. Listen, I, I wish we could, I don't see it happening. You know, I,

01:23:28.480 because it used to be, like you say, even the politicians could see each other in the Senate

01:23:33.440 chamber or they could see each other at the house and, and they could argue it out.

01:23:36.640 Yeah. Tip O'Neill and Reagan would have a drink at the end of the day.

01:23:39.200 Or even campaign managers. You know, my friend, Bob Beckel at Fox just passed recently. Um,

01:23:45.180 but he used to talk about it because he ran presidential campaigns and

01:23:48.140 he'd go at the end of the day and have, have drinks and they talk strategy. Even they'd laugh

01:23:53.320 about mistakes. The other side made with the other side, you know, now it's just like,

01:23:57.960 it's so personal and both sides do it for sure. I mean, I'm thinking right now about,

01:24:02.820 you know, how do you forgive a justice department that wants to label you a domestic terrorist as a

01:24:07.680 parent, right? Like how do those people ever think about having a beer with the people who are

01:24:13.160 behind that push? It's just, there's such, how does Brett Kavanaugh ever have, have a beer with,

01:24:19.460 you know, the people who accused him of gang rape with zero evidence? It's so hard. And I know you

01:24:25.900 believe he should. Brett Kavanaugh should forgive those people and we should all be forgiving those

01:24:33.280 who do us harm, do, do us wrong. I don't know.

01:24:37.780 Well, you know, the, the, the, the other side would say, how does, how does Ketanji Jackson Brown,

01:24:42.260 Brown Jackson, uh, ever have, uh, nice comments to say about Cruz and Hawley and, and, uh,

01:24:48.500 They asked her about her policy positions.

01:24:50.240 So it's both sides, you know, it's, uh,

01:24:52.080 That's not that you cannot compare that to Justice Kavanaugh at all, Marianne. That's not,

01:24:55.840 that is not a fair comparison.

01:24:57.780 Well, you know, Megan, this is an example, you know, you, you, you quote Michael Schellenberger. I,

01:25:03.380 you know, I've read enough about how he's one of those major climate change deniers.

01:25:06.780 We simply don't agree.

01:25:08.680 Have you read his book?

01:25:11.640 I've read articles about him. And so I'll read his book now. I've certainly read articles about him.

01:25:17.880 He is not in any way a climate change denier. He's, he's not in any way a climate change denier,

01:25:23.720 not in any way.

01:25:25.500 Well, if, if you look, you know, if you certainly can read articles out there about how he is and

01:25:30.400 because I haven't read the book actually, uh, I don't want to comment any further.

01:25:34.320 But it is obvious. My point is that you and I, you, you know, we have to do it like right here.

01:25:41.100 Okay. Like right here. So I, I, we're having a debate. You drew a false equivalency. This isn't

01:25:47.980 a friendship. This is an interview and I'm challenging you on your false equivalency.

01:25:53.160 Right. My, my false equivalency. So tell me where my false equivalency is right now.

01:25:57.140 That asking Ketanji Brown Jackson about her rulings on people who look at child porn is in some way 0.99

01:26:05.140 comparable to calling Brett Kavanaugh a gang rapist. You cannot put those two things even close to in the

01:26:12.980 same category.

01:26:13.580 Right. The way she, I'm talking about the tone with which she was spoken to, uh, the fact that

01:26:18.400 they treated her so disrespectfully, I think was something that, that, that is an example of what

01:26:23.400 you had mentioned before, uh, where there has been such a degradation of the, um, the, uh, level,

01:26:31.660 personal level of debate and the way people are treated. So yes, I do believe, uh, that Ketanji,

01:26:37.780 uh, Brown Jackson was true. Is it Jackson Brown or Brown Jackson? I think I'm a little dyslexic

01:26:42.200 right now on this, uh, was treated with great, with great disrespect. Okay. I, I accept that,

01:26:48.480 that that's your belief. I didn't see that. Um, but I think even if I were to grant it, yeah.

01:26:53.380 Yeah. But even if I were to agree, I just don't think you can't put gang rape in the same category

01:26:59.440 as disrespectful tone. The, the, the woman who was, uh, describing behavior that she alleged, 0.91

01:27:08.300 uh, was carried out by Brett Kavanaugh towards her, uh, years ago, many people felt was relevant,

01:27:16.260 uh, to the, that's a dodge. That's, that's a dodge. That's Christine Blasey Ford. She was the 0.95

01:27:20.680 main witness who we now know is working with Democrats and has admitted that she had a greater

01:27:25.080 stake in the matter. That was, she was very concerned about how you'd rule on abortion. Uh,

01:27:28.700 but putting her to the side, you had other women come forward with absolutely baseless allegations 1.00

01:27:32.760 who were given remit by the Senate that was looking at Brett Kavanaugh and by the media that

01:27:38.040 covered him. I know because I worked at NBC at the time and I watched them air reports of alleged

01:27:44.100 sexual assaults that have absolutely no factual basis and absolutely no factual witnesses. And yet

01:27:49.660 they went to air with them while they were burying stories about Harvey Weinstein. That's another

01:27:54.680 matter. But you gang rape was a separate allegation. Gang rape was an actual allegation 0.84

01:27:59.760 made against him. That was totally baseless. Now I'm not talking about Christine Blasey Ford.

01:28:06.440 Then it shouldn't, it should never have occurred. You and I don't disagree on any of that.

01:28:11.180 An unfair fight is an unfair fight, no matter who wages it.

01:28:15.400 Well, that's, I mean, this, okay. Agree. So we'll leave it on a note of agreement because, uh,

01:28:19.520 I think, you know, what was done to him was the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen done in the

01:28:23.760 U S Senate. It put what was done to Robert Bork, to Clarence Thomas, to shame. Uh, and I covered all

01:28:29.760 of them. I mean, I was, I was a lawyer for 10 years and I covered the high court for three years as a

01:28:33.540 reporter. I covered Elena Kagan. I love it. I covered sort of Sonia Sotomayor. I watched Mrs.

01:28:38.460 Alito in tears as they cross-examined him. What was done to Brett Kavanaugh motivated a generation

01:28:43.940 of Republicans to put on that team Jersey in a way few events ever have. And I think it,

01:28:49.140 it has its special infamous place in our history as disgraceful. And it is example of everything

01:28:56.520 that's wrong with our politics today. So anyway, I think it's, it's a sore spot for a lot of us

01:29:01.760 because as, as a lover of the court, um, I found it deeply wrong. And I think he still has to wear

01:29:07.700 this albatross around his neck that's been placed there unfairly and just wrongly.

01:29:13.940 Anyway, I'll give you the last word on it.

01:29:17.180 Oh, I mean, I hear you. I think it's, uh, there's probably legitimacy there. I mean,

01:29:22.700 there's also legitimacy on the fact that to many of us, the fact that, uh, President Trump said,

01:29:27.620 it's okay, we got him because they went and just shot some guy because they didn't like him.

01:29:30.980 Uh, I'm sorry, but it's worse than the albatross, uh, that, uh, uh, that, uh, Kavanaugh is wearing.

01:29:37.880 However, my problem is with the entire neoliberal political establishment

01:29:41.460 on both sides of the political aisle. My concern is with the massive transfer of wealth into the

01:29:46.520 hands of 1%. My concern is with a rigged political economy. My concern is the fact that, you know,

01:29:52.680 it's interesting in the first, um, uh, commercial that you did, you talked about your pain in your

01:29:58.380 left shoulder. Now I had, it's interesting that you said that because I had rotator cuff surgery in my

01:30:04.340 left shoulder. And I didn't know until that experience, I never knew what deep, serious,

01:30:12.020 excruciating physical pain is, but more importantly, I learned, I had put up on my Facebook page, um,

01:30:21.140 that I was in pain. This was even before the surgery. Um, and I got that night, 5,000 comments.

01:30:28.880 I didn't know until that experience, how many thousands of Americans live with chronic pain.

01:30:36.400 And when I like serious chronic pain and get up and go to work every day, uh, when I went through

01:30:41.820 that experience and I understood where would I be if I did, if my, if I didn't have insurance to pay

01:30:46.440 for this surgery, where would I be if I didn't have insurance to pay for these pain drugs that made it

01:30:51.640 in any way bearable, even with all the pain pills I was taking screaming out in pain, that, that kind of

01:30:58.140 thing is what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about the 31 million Americans who do not have

01:31:02.140 health insurance. I'm concerned about, so too many of these things that you and I are talking about

01:31:06.320 form this kind of veil of illusion over what really matters. We have, we have, uh, half a million people

01:31:12.480 are homeless in this country. We have 42 million people who are living beneath the poverty line.

01:31:16.920 We have 18 million Americans who have said that they couldn't, uh, they couldn't afford to fulfill

01:31:21.940 the prescription that the doctors had given them. We have people working full-time minimum wage jobs

01:31:27.920 who cannot afford anywhere in this country, a two bedroom apartment. We have the fact that

01:31:32.720 1% of Americans hold more wealth than the entire middle class. To me, so many of these left, right

01:31:37.740 things are just the veil that keep us from recognizing what both the system that both Democrats and

01:31:43.140 Republicans are keeping in place. And that's what I hope that we as Americans will keep our eye on

01:31:48.560 in order to change, no matter how much investment both the Republican and the Democratic establishment

01:31:53.840 have in keeping things the way they are, including the gargantuan increase by President Biden.

01:32:00.800 Marianne, I gotta go.

01:32:01.580 In addition to what Trump did, but even more with the military budget.

01:32:03.460 I thank you, but I'm facing a heartbreak, yeah.

01:32:06.900 Marianne Williamson, thank you. Her 2019 book, A Politics of Love, A Handbook for a New American Revolution.

01:32:12.040 Check it out. Hope you tune in tomorrow when we have Senator Tim Scott for the very first time.

01:32:17.060 Looking forward to it. See you then.

01:32:18.280 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 29, 2022

Collusion Between Political and Media Elite, and Learning Through Joy, with Marianne Williamson ｜ Ep. 288

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